AI startup Voysis hires Google’s Head of Voice Ian Hodson

Voysis, the complete voice AI platform company, today announced that Ian Hodson, who for the last five years led Google’s global text to speech efforts (which are used in a wide range of Google’s products including Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Android) has joined the company in the role of Distinguished Architect. The company, which enables third party enterprises to rapidly generate intelligent voice systems, is rapidly scaling its R&D team after closing an $8 million financing earlier this year. With more than 20 years of voice industry experience, Hodson will be playing a leading role across product, strategy and R&D.

“Ian is renowned for his domain knowledge and mentoring skills and is regarded by many leading scientists and engineers in this space as the very best at what he does. Ian’s breadth of in-domain experience at companies both small and large will no doubt have an impact on all aspects of the company,” said Peter Cahill, CEO and Founder of Voysis.

Most recently, Hodson led the Google Text to Speech team following the 2010 acquisition of Phonetic Arts, where he was a co-founder and Vice President of Engineering. At Google, Hodson was responsible for integrating the team and technology into Google’s voice services and led all recruiting efforts for the team for over a five year period. Previously, Hodson worked as a Group Manager at Nuance, where he led the post acquisition integration of Rhetorical Systems where he served as VP of Software Engineering.

“Given my career to date, I have a deep appreciation and respect for the magnitude of the challenges that companies across all industries face in a ‘voice-first’ world. I joined the Voysis team because of the company’s impressive understanding of these challenges and its platform approach, which uniquely positions them to deliver,” said Hodson. “I am thrilled to join the team and be a part of making Voice AI accessible to companies across all verticals.”

“We’ve tapped into an excellent resource of voice, natural language, and deep learning talent in Europe and Ian’s joining is a great early milestone for the business as we look toward the next phase of our evolution as a company,” said Noel Ruane, Executive Chairman at Voysis. “There’s a long history of AI and natural language research across many of the top universities in Europe and we’re thrilled that Voysis is already becoming known as a go-to destination for the top talent coming out of these leading institutions.”